Nomura’s digital asset subsidiary Laser Digital has thrown its institutional weight behind ZIGChain, a Layer 1 blockchain built specifically for regulated real-world asset tokenization. The partnership is centered in the UAE, where both firms are operating under a regulatory framework that most of the Western financial world is still drafting legislation to create.
ZIGChain’s pitch is infrastructure for tokenized private credit, with a specific focus on SME lending in the Gulf Cooperation Council region. A small business in Dubai needs a loan, a licensed lender originates that loan, and instead of that credit sitting on a bank’s balance sheet, it gets tokenized on ZIGChain and becomes accessible to a broader pool of institutional capital.
Laser Digital CEO Dr. Jez Mohideen laid out the strategic rationale at the ZIGChain Summit 2026, held in Dubai on April 28. His framing was characteristically institutional: this is about bridging conventional finance with blockchain in an environment where the rules of the road already exist.
ZIGChain has been building that GCC footprint through partnerships with licensed entities. Beehive, a UAE-based SME lending platform, and ABHI, a fintech operating in the embedded finance space, are both part of the ecosystem. Beehive joined in July 2026, ABHI came aboard via a partnership with Zignaly in December 2025. ZIGChain’s ecosystem fund has reportedly crossed $100M.
